Disadvantages Of Being Big

[Willie Pep 229]

If you like statistics, here's a little more.

If we once again look at the group of 86 world ranked boxers from 1930, in the 8 original divisions (The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings: 1930 - BoxRec), I thought it might be interesting to see, how many fights they had in the year 1930. In other words, how active were the boxers back then, once they reached world class. Here's how that distribution looks):

1- 5 fights..... 6 (Schmeling and Sharkey lowest with only 1 and 2 fights during the year, respectively).
6-10 fights.... 36
11-20 fights... 40
20+ fights...... 4 (topped by Carnera's 26).

The average number of fights for the 86 for that year comes to 10.95! This average is maybe a bit higher, than I would have guessed, as I figured the activity might slow down a little, once the boxers reached world class... but this is not really the case, as there seems to be no lul in the action at all! Probably because even for the top boxers at the time (with the exception of the absolut biggest names, like Schmeling and Sharkey) purses were still pretty meager.


Now of course this is no fun, if we don't compare such numbers with a similar group of more recent world ranked boxers. I picked the year 2000, where The Ring doesn't list any champions, but only the top 10 men in each weightclass:
The Ring Magazine's Annual Ratings: 2000 - BoxRec

So here the 8 original divisions give us a total 80 names to play with, and their distribution, when it comes to the number of fights engaged in during the year 2000, looks like this:

0-5 fights.... 78 (2 boxers, Reggie Johnson and Andrew Council, had no fights at all during this year).
5+ fights..... 2 (Manfredy and Munoz, each with 7 fights, are the only two in this bracket!).

The average for all 80 during the year is a (not surprisingly!) measly 2.66... so once again, it's like two different worlds, really.


Another thing that might be fun/interesting to look at for the two groups, is the career KO percentage.

1930 group career KO%:

0-10%..... 8 boxers
10-25%... 28 boxers
25-50%... 45 boxers
50+%...... 5 boxers (Carnera highest with 68.9%)
Average career KO% for all 86: 24.7


2000 group career KO%:

0-25%..... 1 boxer (Greg Wright, with 22.86%, is the only one in this category).
25-50%... 25 boxers
50-75%... 48 boxers
75+%...... 6 boxers (Hamed tops with 83.78%)
Average career KO% for all 80: 55.7


What does all this tell us, in relation to which era produced the best fighters? Nothing, really... it's just a bit of statistics, for those (few?) who are into that!

Good stuff to read -

Is the KO % off because of early stoppages I.e. fighter safety or possibly more deliberate mismatches ? ? ?

[them_apples]

Good stuff to read -

Is the KO % off because of early stoppages I.e. fighter safety or possibly more deliberate mismatches ? ? ?

The ko percentage doesn’t mean anything in my book, fights are just stopped much earlier than they were before. On too of that inactive fighters get knocked out easier

[billeau2]

Most people who sound like Nash are in padded cells or running for president.

[billeau2]

Logic is relative when applied to a general statement. If we were living in the ice age right now, as we did in the past... Not only would "Big" be an advantage, but specifically "Obese" would be that advantage. Big muscular people would die quickly, not enough food around to feed muscles... But Obese people would have food reserves and could handle the cold. See the point of the statement above?

Also, it takes the most calories to feed the brain... so Obesity also correlates to intelligence, under specific circumstances. None of which makes obesity any more desirable today.

In a boxing scenario, with lots of rounds, smaller gloves (reduced need to generate power artificially with muscles) coming in small would be a major advantage. In a 3 round fight? size might be a major advantage.

[Bundana]

The ko percentage doesn't mean anything in my book, fights are just stopped much earlier than they were before. On too of that inactive fighters get knocked out easier

With no film of the vast, VAST majority of the old fights from back in the day - how do we know that?

[The Old LefHook]

Giants are more noticeable than normal people. Especially when they are getting KO'd. When Tye fields got KO'd, we tended to notice because of the novelty. When Vlad flopped around on unstable gams, we noticed. It was fine comedy.

If someone did statistics on randomly selected boxers 6"6' or over, I don't think the galoots would fare particularly well. I would like to see if they do as well on the whole as randomly selected heavyweights of normal size. I have to conjecture they would not.

[The Old LefHook]

With no film of the vast, VAST majority of the old fights from back in the day - how do we know that?

Again, it would take statistics, wouldn't it? The random selection is of utmost importance.

[Bundana]

Giants are more noticeable than normal people. Especially when they are getting KO'd. When Tye fields got KO'd, we tended to notice because of the novelty. When Vlad flopped around on unstable gams, we noticed. It was fine comedy.

If someone did statistics on randomly selected boxers 6"6' or over, I don't think the galoots would fare particularly well. I would like to see if they do as well on the whole as randomly selected heavyweights of normal size. I have to conjecture they would not.

So... will you take a crack at this?

[Willie Pep 229]

John Bois of Sports Nation does these wonderful statistical evaluations of football and baseball called Chart Party - I have said before and got absolutely no responses whatsoever, that if we came up with a reasonable question and promoted it collectively maybe we could get his eye and effort to turn to the history of prize fighting.

Anyway if you are a stats geek and haven't experienced one of his videos, you should.

Cleveland Browns Fans Live in Hell is a good one, also The Worst Punt Ever or Kick-offs are Useless.

[The Old LefHook]

So... will you take a crack at this?

I can't. The last time I did math I had a seizure. Besides, it takes a special subscription, which I do not have, to see all the information. I am going to do math again though. I have to, since I am working on a card game with 65 cards and 5 suits. Figuring out hand values was harder than I anticipated. For instance, a flush beats a full house when there are 5 suits. Finally, I did all calculations 2 ways. You can have a true rainbow when you have 5 different suits, (which is called a rainbow). Now a rainbow straight is extremely hard to get, and ranks just below 4 of a kind. But remember, you can have 5 of a kind in this game.

I want one of the other boys to see statistically how galoots do compared to normals, since Willie and Apples both did fine jobs, and I know some of my boys have special subscriptions..